Cameron Brink has swatted away the best players in the WNBA. But there is one walk she isn’t sure she can make without a wobble: the one down the aisle.
The Los Angeles Sparks forward, 24, is in the final stretch of preparations to marry her college sweetheart Ben Felter, a former Stanford rower, after a 2026 campaign interrupted by ankle and rib problems.
And while Brink, a 2021 NCAA champion with Stanford and second overall pick at the 2024 WNBA Draft, is no stranger to the spotlight, even she can admit that the wedding is bringing on different nerves to anything she has felt on a basketball court.
‘I’m an anxious person; I’ve been very open about that throughout the years’ she told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
‘I’ve heard stories of brides getting anxious and needing to take their dress off because they get too hot right before walking down the aisle. That would be me!
‘But then I would pull it together,’ the Sparks star said with a smirk. ‘So we’ll see.’
WNBA star Cameron Brink is days away from wedding college sweetheart Ben Felter
The couple, who have been dating for four years, first met when Felter was a rower at Stanford
Ahead of the big day, Brink sat down with the Daily Mail to discuss all the details
The big day also offers a rare chance to switch off from basketball. Brink admitted the year took its toll but stressed that stepping away from the court now and then is about protecting her love for the game, not easing off.
‘Burnout is such a thing,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘Obviously, this past season was tough. No matter what, it was still a great year and I learned so much, but it’s just the nature of pro sports.
‘Sometimes it’s really nice to not touch a ball. Fans are like, “Get in the gym!” and it’s like, trust me, I’ve been in the gym. Balance is a thing.’
Brink, whose rookie year was ended by a torn ACL, added: ‘As much as this is my job and I take it so seriously, I really want to retain the joy of it all, so I think those breaks are super important.’
Her injuries have also changed how she thinks about training, admitting that exercise is a daily part of looking after her mental health.
‘Being hurt, not having that opportunity to move my body in the ways I want to every day, has kind of changed my mindset,’ she says. ‘Even on vacation, I’m going to make 30 minutes to get a lift in or do something.’
Far from putting her feet up this off-season, Brink is in the gym at least five days a week in LA with medical staff, physios, trainers and player development coaches. It’s a routine her younger self would not have recognized.
‘It’s funny, in college I did not like getting shots up, and lifting definitely wasn’t my favorite thing,’ she admits. ‘But it’s been really cool to get deeper into my pro career and really enjoy and look forward to going to work every day.’
The Los Angeles Sparks star admitted the year took its toll but stressed that stepping away from the court now and then is about protecting her love for the game, not easing off
Brink described fiancé Felter as her ‘Superman’ with the support he offers in her career
‘Sometimes it’s really nice to not touch a ball. Fans are like, ‘Get in the gym!’ and it’s like, trust me, I’ve been in the gym’, Brink explained
These days, she says, ‘my shooting has been my cardio,’ with her staff turning every drill into a game. And she’s just as serious in the weights room: ‘People may not think I’m pushing weight, but the goal every week is to go up in weight and push myself.’
Unlike many brides-to-be, Brink is not overhauling her routine for the big day either. ‘Leading up to a big event as a woman, you feel like, ‘I need to optimize this, I need to look perfect, and my skin needs to look perfect,” she says.
‘The men in my life, my dad, my fiancé, have been like, ‘You look fine, just continue to do what you’re doing.’ So for me, I’m not doing anything crazy that I’ve never done before.’
Felter has become one of Brink’s biggest sources of support during the course of the season.
‘Oh my gosh, he is Superman to me,’ Brink says. ‘It’s so cheesy, but we’re not with each other in person all the time, and he’s the guy that’s like, ‘Have you eaten today?’ It’s just the little things.
‘I’m an anxious girl, and he’s there for me mentally. He never passes judgment; he’s there for me when I need a laugh. He’s always a shoulder to cry on.’
The planning itself has been a team effort. The Sparks star credits her parents with taking on the invoices and seating charts, alongside a wedding planner and her best friend and maid of honor, who she jokes is now ‘sick of all the planning.’
‘I’m truly so lucky to have an amazing village around me. My mom and my dad are both retired, and they have the bandwidth and just the kindness in their hearts to help me,’ Brink explained.
Unlike many brides-to-be, Brink is not overhauling her routine for the big day either
‘He never passes judgment; he’s there for me when I need a laugh. He’s a shoulder to cry on.’
The couple’s honeymoon will be just their second vacation together given her busy schedule
And Felter, she says, has been far more involved than she expected. ‘Not to lean into a stereotype that guys aren’t interested in wedding planning, but he’s been really fun to just sit down and get into the details with,’ she says.
Even so, the detail and the cost have caught her off guard. ‘There truly are so many little tiny details that you never thought would go into planning a wedding. I’m like, holy c***. Also, just the money that goes into it!’
Drawing up the guest list, at least, was painless. The couple keep a small circle, and Brink is most looking forward to hugging relatives she hasn’t seen in years, and meeting members of Felter’s family for the first time.
‘There are people from Ben’s family that I haven’t even met yet due to distance, health issues, and just life,’ she says. ‘So it’s just going to be a really exciting day, and I just hope everyone enjoys it as much as hopefully we will.’
Then comes the honeymoon, a tour of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Brink first visited Japan as a teenager, when her father treated the family to a trip after she won gold with USA Basketball in Thailand, and she has wanted to go back ever since.
Remarkably, it will be only the couple’s second vacation together. The first was hardly a getaway: a trip to Montreal for a 3×3 USA Basketball qualifying tournament.
Brink admits the pair could do with getting out more. ‘We’re such homebodies. If we have the chance to stay in, we’re such nerds, we’ll play Fortnite or something,’ she says. ‘We literally will do that; that’s our thing.’
She even has a ready-made excuse for the habit. ‘I never thought in my life I would be as obsessed with Fortnite as I am,’ she laughs.
‘A bunch of NBA players play video games all the time; it must help with hand-eye coordination. That’s what I tell myself anyway.’
As for the cost of the big day, Brink falls back on a family motto. ‘My family always says time spent celebrating is never time wasted,’ she says. ‘We all work so hard day-to-day, so I think it’s really important to just take those little moments and soak it in.’
